Water Sharing Conflicts and Management in the Indus River Basin

Sharing water resources within country and amongst transborder countries often create conflict because of increasing demand of fresh water for their domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors due to growing population and increasing economic activities. As a result, every country is interested to build more water storages like dams and barrages to safeguard their water requirements in the lean periods or to protect their areas during flood period. Therefore, a transboundary conflict amongst riparian countries on water sharing is obvious facts which are resolved either through bilateral dialogue or by involving international arbitrators. Similarly, a conflict of water sharing within a country has also been serious issue particularly during drought and lean period resulting political conflicts and obstacles in construction of dams and reservoirs. Pakistan is country of 207 million populations, the sixth of the most populated country of the world has been facing transboundary water sharing conflict with India while within a country inter provinces mistrust over water distribution has created reservation over the construction of new water storages. Pakistan has two agreements which provide legal framework for water distribution and management. Indus Water Treaty is an international agreement signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan and other is national agreement amongst the provinces called Indus water accord signed in 1991 by province. Despite several reservations and hostile territorial conflicts between India and Pakistan the Indus water treaty has been successfully functioning in managing water distribution of Indus River and its eastern tributaries originate from Indian occupied Kashmir. Similarly, Indus water accord 1991 provides a mechanism to resolve water sharing conflicts amongst provinces.

Cloning and Insilico Characterization of Itr1 Gene from Bread Wheat Advance Lines

Iron being an important micronutrient plays a vital role in maintaining life on planet earth. It is equally important for plants and animals. Deficiency of iron is one of the major causes of anemia. The present study was performed with the objective of gene cloning and the in-silico characterization of metal transporters in wheat.Experiments were conducted on the wheat advance lines varieties ML 16 and GF 16, for which seeds were obtained from Wheat Research Institute, Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, Faisalabad. Seeds were grown in growth chamber androots of plant were used for RNA extraction. The IRT1 iron transporter from wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) advance lines was cloned and in silico characterized at Plant Molecular Genetics and Genomics Laboratory in department of Botany GC University Faisalabad. The IRT1 was cloned and sequenced for in silico characterization and compared with other iron transporter sequences. It is revealed that IRT1 gene is present in the cereal crop like maize, rice and wheat and molecular study revealed that the size of protein is 2532.0 Da. Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of the cloned gene exhibited 100% similarity with iron transporter gene of Oryza sativa. The MSA also clearly indicated a conserve region of ZIP gene family. The present study can be used as a mile stone for understanding of iron transporters in wheat under different set of climatic conditions and wheat breeding programs for introducing new wheat varieties with better iron contents in future.